Refugee board refuses to deport alleged senior Iranian official

Canada’s refugee board has rejected the federal government’s latest attempt to deport an alleged senior member of the Iranian regime found living in the country.

The Canada Border Services Agency accuses the Iranian national of holding a high-ranking position in the government of the Islamic Republic.

But following a hearing held behind closed doors, the Immigration and Refugee Board declined to issue a deportation order, according to the CBSA.

The decision is the first to go against the federal government since it vowed to ban senior Iranian officials from Canada.

The IRB refused to release a copy of the ruling to Global News or identify the Iranian citizen.

Global News applied to attend the hearing but was unsuccessful.

The outcome of the case, however, was disclosed by the CBSA, which said it had appealed the decision to the IRB’s Immigration Appeal Division.

The CBSA declined to comment further on the case.

Canada’s public safety and immigration ministers announced the crackdown on member’s of Iran’s regime in November 2022 after Tehran’s brutal suppression of women’s rights demonstrations.

The protesters took to the streets when Mahsa Amini, 22, was arrested by Iran’s so-called morality police for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab and died in custody.

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Her killing sparked the Women, Life, Freedom movement, but authorities crushed the protests with mass arrests and killings.

In response, Canada officially designated the Iranian regime as a government engaged in terrorism and systematic and gross human rights violations.

The policy was supposed to bar senior Iranian regime members from Canada and lead to the deportation of those already present.

“Perpetrators of gross and systematic human rights abuses are not welcome in this country,” Sean Fraser, who was then immigration minister, said at the time.

More than two years later, 18 suspected top regime members have been caught in Canada, but only three deportation hearings have been completed, and the most recent one was unsuccessful.

The two other cases that resulted in deportation orders concerned Seyed Salman Samani, Iran’s former deputy interior minister, and Majid Iranmanesh, a science adviser to the vice-president of Iran.

But just one person has been deported under the policy so far, despite the government’s vow that it would have “severe” consequences.

Another six cases are still before the Refugee Board, which has refused to disclose the names of the alleged officials and prohibited the press and public from observing the hearings.

The ban on senior Iranian officials was “a preventative measure in that it denies any senior official in the service of the regime access to Canada in the first place,” a CBSA spokesperson said on Tuesday.

He said 84 visas had been cancelled by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada under the policy.

“Additionally, it enables the Canada Border Services Agency to take immigration enforcement action against any regime member who may have already been in Canada prior to the designation.”

But he said a “number of factors” impacted Canada’s ability to deport foreign nationals, including whether they had appealed to the courts.

Iran is a key source of instability in the Middle East and the principal sponsor of Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Hamas, which set off the current regional conflict on Oct. 7. 2023.

In 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp shot down a passenger plane, killing 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents.

The Islamic Republic has also been linked to recent assassination plots in the West, one targeting former Liberal MP Irwin Cotler.

Meanwhile, a hearing was to begin next month to decide whether to deport a Toronto man who helped Iran evade sanctions.

Brothers Arash and Amin Yousefijam were convicted in the U.S. of operating a sanctions-dodging scheme.

After they were sentenced, they returned to Ontario and used the province’s name change system to adopt new identities, calling themselves Arash and Ameen Cohen.

Ameen Cohen subsequently became a dentist. Ontario’s dental governing body stripped him of his license after Global News revealed his past.

Deportation hearings for Arash Cohen, whom the CBSA has alleged is a danger to Canada’s security, are scheduled to begin on Feb. 25.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca

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